Being a writer in Hollywood is like going to Hitler's Eagle Nest with a great idea for a bar mitzvah.

Films have degenerated to their original operation as carnival amusement - they offer not drama but thrills.

The Oscars demonstrate the will of the people to control and judge those they have elected to stand above them (much, perhaps, as in bygone days, an election celebrated the same).

Every scene should be able to answer three questions: "Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don't get it? Why now?"

When the three branches of government have failed to represent the citizenry and the mass of the media has failed to represent the citizenry, then the citizenry better represent the citizenry.

Forget narrative, backstory, characterisation, exposition, all of that. Just make the audience want to know what happens next.

It is the writer’s job to make the play interesting. It is the actor’s job to make the performance truthful.

Opportunity may knock, but it seldom nags.

We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.

People may or may not say what they mean... but they always say something designed to get what they want.

A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.

There was warmth in his large piercing brown eyes. The kind of warmth that tucks a child into bed. The same kind of warmth that dries your wet hair on a rainy December afternoon.

Without a best friend to tell stories to, it almost didn't matter if they even happened.

Self-plagiarism is style.

I always wanted to make movies.

I think expression is at it's best when it comes from an honest place, so I always try to use my own life experiences, feelings, struggles, frustrations etc. as the catalyst for my song writing.

The ability to forget the past enables people to free themselves gradually from the pain they once suffered; but it also often makes them repeat the mistakes of their predecessors.

The physical stuff of a movie is difficult. It's one of those things where it's just harder than it looks.

Let no one try to justify the glaring difference between the classes and the masses, the prince and the pauper, by saying that the former need more.

Cinema is always a political art, at the end.

We are the slaves of slaves